Prior packet transmission and switching systems and/or networks included fault recovery arrangements. One such prior arrangement required a so-called centralized network management function to analyze reported faults and to reconfigure the network as required. Consequently, the centralized network management function required knowledge of the entire network and connectivity to each node in the network. Such arrangements are slow to respond to faults and are also susceptible to faults in the network and in the management function itself.
In another prior fault recovery arrangement, each node in the network required knowledge of the network configuration and knowledge of faults occurring in the network. In such an arrangement, each node must store additional network configuration data other than that needed for transmission of packets in the particular node. Any change in the network configuration may require a change in the information being stored in the node. Both the storing and updating of the configuration information in the node is cumbersome and expensive to implement.